Japan's industrial robot orders broke 1 trillion. Is there a

Last updated Jan, 19th 2019

Introduction: Recently, the director of the Japan Robot Industry Association and Kawasaki Heavy Industries Director Hiroshi Hashimoto said at a meeting that the order value of Japanese industrial robots increased by 7% in 2018 compared with 2017, surpassing 1 trillion yen for the first time. The $10 billion mark is expected to increase by 4% from the previous year to 100.5 trillion yen in 2019.

Recently, the director of the Japan Robot Industry Association and Kawasaki Heavy Industries Director Hiroshi Hashimoto said at a meeting that the order value of Japanese industrial robots increased by 7% in 2018 compared with 2017, surpassing 1 trillion yen for the first time ( About 10 billion US dollars) and it is expected to increase by 4% in 2019 to 1.05 trillion yen.

Behind the gratifying results, I have to face the fact that although the demand for industrial robots has been strong under the impetus of the automation investment boom, the total shipments of industrial robots in Japan began to decline in 2018. The total shipments in July-September decreased by 5% year-on-year. The decline in the nine quarters was mainly due to the decrease in export exports to China by nearly 20%, which had an overall impact. In fact, as early as June last year, the monthly order value of Japanese industrial robots decreased by 0.6%, after a lapse of 24 months, although the order amount remained at a high level, but the signs of the peak decline were obvious.

The decline in exports to China may also be affected by the weakening demand in China's smartphone industry in 2018 and the changing demand in the automotive industry. Is this change also affected by the rise of Chinese robotics? Previously, Japan has been the world's largest exporter of industrial robots, leading the entire traditional industrial robot field. In China, the proportion of Japanese robots headed by FANUC and Yaskawa occupying the market share of industrial robots in China for a long time is more than 30%.

China is still the world's largest industrial robot market. The demand for robots in China is still growing under the intelligent transformation of manufacturing industry. In this context, is there still a chance for domestic robot companies to break out?

In recent years, in order to have the opportunity to compete in the robot market in the future, the Chinese government has introduced a series of policy directions for the development of the robot industry, which has inspired a large number of robot companies and Internet giants to invest heavily in the development of key technologies for robots. China’s broad application market as the largest consumer of industrial robots also attracts domestic players.The layout of the manufacturers.

The domestic robot expansion in the early stage has been leaping forward. However, in 2017, the domestic industrial robots continued to increase sales and the domestic robot production increased. The market share of domestic industrial robots reversed. The domestic robot market share has been five years. For the first time, it fell by 6 percentage points year-on-year, leaving only less than 27% of the market. According to the data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the growth rate of industrial robots in the first 10 months of domestic robots continued to slow down in 2018. In the past year, foreign robot companies accelerated the expansion of production capacity by adding joint ventures and independent factories.

In addition to the intensification of competition, there are many reasons. Although there are more than 800 enterprises involved in robot production in China, most of them mainly rely on assembly and processing because of the late start. Lack of technical capabilities of core components, products can only be used in areas where robot performance requirements are low, and the profit is meager. However, with various forms of government subsidies, many robot manufacturers still survive in the market.

A large number of support and subsidies have allowed many companies that do not have core competitiveness to flow in. In the absence of technology and talent, only the bottom end of production capacity can be developed, and the domestic robot industry is moving towards low-quality redundant construction.

In addition, the cost of industrial robots has also fallen sharply in recent years. It is predicted that the cost of industrial robots is expected to fall by 65% ​​between 2015 and 2025. Therefore, for domestic industrial robot manufacturers, the method of occupying market share by means of cost performance and channel compression mode in previous years will also fail.

When Chinese subsidies have always come to an end, "the irons still need to be hard." In view of the current situation in China, domestic robot challenges and opportunities coexist.

First, the increase in labor costs has led to a shorter and shorter investment payback period for robots, and the price of robots is gradually decreasing, so there will be More companies are sourcing industrial robots instead of labor, and the market demand for industrial robots will only increase,

Second, the current industry 4.0The craze is growing. With the breakthrough of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, 3D printing, Internet of Things, and cloud computing, industrial robots will be better integrated into the system network of factory automation.

Since the outbreak of industrial robots in 2012, it has lasted for less than five years. Japan has a long-term experience of 10 years of rapid growth. China is making the robot industry develop in a deeper and more comprehensive field. It is believed that under the temptation of various factors, the development speed of the industrial robot industry will once again accelerate, and enter the second booming development period in history, or it will be even warmer than the first wave.